


Lost To History

by Gay_as_fuck



Category: Supernatural
Genre: British Men of Letters, Drabble, Gen, Men of Letters, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 08:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12317319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gay_as_fuck/pseuds/Gay_as_fuck
Summary: Toni discovers the history of what happened to the American Men of Letters and learns what hunters are made of.





	Lost To History

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I love the hunter aesthetic and I needed to write something about it. Toni seemed like the best canvas to paint on so to speak.

Lady Toni Bevell noted very early on in her studies of the Winchester brothers that American hunters are odd. For a group that hides its hierarchy to a point where even the Men of Letters can’t find it they let a lot of people die. 

Monsters can hang around in small towns for years killing as many as they wish before some lucky hunter finds themselves in its path and the monster’s left in the dust. 

American hunters are strange people, and she can’t tell if the Winchesters are outliers or prime examples. Toni Bevell decides it is up to her to give the old men as much information on the American branch as she can.

Her research begins with one of the six bunkers the Men of Letters created across the country. This one is in Eastport Maine so she takes her plane and goes there. The whole complex is empty, eerily abandoned.

Dust covers the floor and tables. Old books and files have to be blown onto uncover their titles yet nothing rots in the bunker. There are no mice, no old food in the fridges. The old men of letters picked up and left without a trace. The only problem is Toni couldn’t figure out why.

Of course, the common knowledge was the reason the Men of Letters in America disbanded was because of communication. The country was simply so large that six stations could not operate effectively.

There is an old joke among the British men of letters that has been told too many times for anyone to find it amusing anymore.

“The American branch isn’t doing that well so we send six letters telling them all to disband and they do. Three weeks later we send another letter saying we need their help, but no one gets it- they’d just left the day before.” 

Toni never found it funny, why was there humor in failure. The Americans had failed long ago and because of that, their country was in disarray. It was a shame.

There was a thread of importance to the joke, however, something not mentioned in the few lines. Where had those Men of Letters gone, the time frame was wrong and Britain had sent no order to disband, yet they were gone all the same.

Faced with such a dilemma Toni did what the British Men of Letters do best, she waited and looked. 

A Robert Jackson had been one of Maine’s Men of Letters and she found a record of him being married to someone by the name Deliah in Fall River Massachusetts. She found records of the men leaving Maine and going across New England. 

New Hampshire and Vermont had a set of twins, Jared and Jean who lived in the mountains. Rhode Island’s protector was an old woman by the name of Violet, a witch most likely but a white one. 

Perhaps they had started the hunter networks and their children’s children were not training the next generation to lead the charge against the monsters. Perhaps the huge area, wide open spaces and crowded forests which had brought the downfall of the original Men of Letters was what keep the hunters safe.

More land just meant more places to hide. 

At that discovery, Toni went home. Partly since she had been summoned back to deal with a particularly nasty creature yet mostly because she was done. She had seen what she needed to see and assured herself that a hidden structure of Hunters kept the country from falling apart. They weren’t as good as she had hoped, but they would do for now.

Years later while she had Sam Winchester tied up in the dark she found herself asking the same questions that she had years ago. This time, however, she spoke them to an audience instead of to an empty room though Sam provided even fewer answers.

While he was in her care she came to a startling discovery. The way his brow had knitted together at the mention of a hunter hierarchy and the smile that dragged his lips when she begged to know who they were.

“Screw You.” He gritted out at her and seemed to take satisfaction at her surprise. “There are none.”

He was a liar so she stuck her favorite loyal dog on him. He never took back that answer.

When she met Mary Winchester she became sure it was true. Mary Winchester was a hunter’s daughter and a hunter herself. She had raised two boys that ended up destined for the trade. She had made deals with devils and saved her husband from the things that lurked in the night.

Mary had a scar across her top lip and when she smiled she looked like she’d just gotten her revenge. Dean was the same way, with only a few more scars and a little less bite. 

Mary told her everything. There was no one who leads the hunters- hell they were barely organized. Every hunter had lost someone to the fight and never quite gotten that part of them back. 

Hunters are not whole or sane, they are missing bits of muscles and halves of their hearts. Hunters snarl when they smile and somehow they keep coming. 

Toni learned that there is only one thing keeping the American hunters going. It is not duty or honor. They don’t care what elders tell them, in fact, they often scorn it. Hunters, however, do not stop coming. If they die someone else will take their place.

They get information from gruff old men who learned years ago never to be nice or remember faces. Each hunter carries with them a smattering of legends piled into notebooks and tattoo protection symbols on their arms.

A hunter’s weapons are iron rings and the folklore no one ever got around to writing down. They use their father’s knives, self-sacrifice, and steely determination to keep the monsters just standing on the doorsteps and not ruining another family.

Toni isn’t sure whether that’s tragic or pathetic but either way she pulls a smile onto her lips and tells the biggest lie to grace her lips.

“The old men had their suspicions, but I've always known.”


End file.
